Saturday, 19 January 2013

That Excalibur artwork - Now with Added Colour!

About a week ago I posted up artwork from an Alan Davis Excalibur Poster, which showed the transition period between the original line-up and larger roster of the second major incarnation of the team. In a rather clever way.

Well, last week I received an email from a Janet-Elizabeth Black, who happened to still have a copy of the Poster this artwork became, and was kind enough to scan me a copy of it. So here it is, in full colour.

You should be able to click through for a larger version. The colours appear to be credited to Paul Mounts, whose name is added beneath Mark Farmer's in the finished poster.

As you can see it also bears the 'Mutant Genesis' logo, which was the name of the X-Men Office initiative which featured the launches of Chris Claremont and Jim Lee's adjectiveless 'X-Men' (Still technically the best selling comic book #1 of all time) and Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld's X-Force. It was a big deal. The moment where the X-Men truly became a regimented line of books, with a very specific identity.

It's important to remember this, because much as though Excalibur seems to be passed off by many people these days as just this quirky little off-shoot book, that nobody ever read, this poster comes from a time when that very much was not the case. Back then it actually sold pretty well. Certainly well enough to be considered to be part of this X-Family 'Event'.

It a really nice piece. Thanks for sharing, Janet.

In related news some of you might like to go over to Mark Farbrother's Blog, The Throne of Otherworld, where he's posted up a bit of info about the planned but abandoned Technet mini series from 1993. There even appears to be a small amount of artwork. Well worth a look.

Mark Roberts

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It Came From Darkmoor...

...in October of 1976, on the moors around a research facility. For a few years thereafter it lurked in the shadows, doing its own thing, telling its own tales, until suddenly it found that it was a bit a successful. It began to grow, create more of itself, embrace licensing and raise its profile higher, until the day came when it's older Brother had to take notice of it.

'IT' was Marvel UK.

This is a blog dedicated to the mostly forgotten (But ultimately worthwhile) British corner of the Marvel Universe. Its titles, its characters, its former imprint and more recent revivals. God knows they all seem to gnaw away at my brain so often that, since 2007, I thought that I may as well find a way to exorcise them in a constructive fashion.

This site was the result.

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Contrary to some people's beliefs they were mostly written in-continuity with the American Marvel Comics.

You may not see them as often as the likes of Iron Man, Spider-man or Captain America, but they are still out there.